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THE GOTHIC (songs written 1995​-​96, age 15​-​16)

by Alex Reed

supported by
MxAshlynn
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MxAshlynn Bought this as a gift for one of my girlfriends~~ Favorite track: An Aftermath.
awfullysinister
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awfullysinister Every song here is a gem, full of sincerity, drama, and confession, the way a goth album should be. A great rear view mirror that looks into the mind and obvious talent of a young Alex Reed. Favorite track: Drowning.
Mindphlux
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Mindphlux Amazing early works by a very talented musician.
Marraskuutamo
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Marraskuutamo To be honest these lyrics are better than many older people write. Lovely angsty teen goth feelings. Favorite track: The Phoenix's Last Stand.
Ash
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Ash This was my summer soundtrack when it came out and I really like listening to it in order from start to finish. Favorite track: The Great Green Room.
PhilintheSpaces
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PhilintheSpaces This is fantastic. Love the obvious influences here of the named artists, especially The Cure. Specifically the influence of The Cure’s Pornography album on Drowning. Alex never disappoints. The young goth in him shines here in lyrics and composition. Being an 80’s/90’s goth myself I really connect with these songs. Favorite track: Drowning.
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1.
The Deepest Sea of Discontent You found a place of bloodshot red despair The vastest deepest sea of discontent And now I find that I must journey there To make up all the time we never spent You bathe in waters cold as I come near You hardly recognize my aging face It pains me like a plague to see you here To see how far you've fallen from your place I plead for your return to our domain Although I know the answer must be no For here you've found the ultimate in pain And no one can be with you where you go A last embrace a wordless soft goodbye Begins my journey under saddest sky
2.
The Great Green Room In the Great Green Room Where the tide drowns up the moon In the company of a man Wearing black and sleeping soon And the air is like you pulse Only surfacing when it must In the bed in the Great Greed Room You can see the words inscribed and the words say "I am leaving and I'll induce grieving And I'm happier than when... The answer burning with the tide all turning With miraculous intent I desired just to be expired And until I get my wish Try if you can with a book in your hand And lead me on to this" On the second floor Is the hush-hush paramour And the man who deals in flowers And he cries knowing not what for And the cross around his neck Hanging down it burns her chest And the smoke that's pouring forth Is a message that he knows and the smoke is Black and bellow and the sulphur yellow Of a mission long ago And the scream is skewing everything he's doing And he sees it's time to sow And it's time to sever all the things he'd ever Wanted in this life of his With his mind encoding and the room exploding He will see just how it is In the mind of man His right because he can Take all under the moon And he watched as the innocent ran And his heart is pumping slow Telling him which way to go To destroy the soul of man With a swift and heavy sword and the sword is Dripping bloody red as anybody Who was there when it was drawn At the final battle at the shake and rattle And the roll of thunder gone In the stormy weather sweeping field and heather Every cemetery torn And the dirt was raining down with all containing In the place where I was born In a cradle of wood Against the bars she stood And before her purple eyes Thinking only if she could So no one would attend Now it's far too late to mend This dream of broken wood With the child deep inside and the baby Pulls and whimpers leaving itself limper Than its mother's call to war With a scream not comic then the child's stomach Empties out unto the floor And the floor is bluer and the word is newer Than a light inside the tomb Of a long dead prophet who had made well off it In the middle of the Great Green Room I am leaving and I'll induce grieving And I'm happier than then Answers falling and I'm here left calling Knowing now what she had meant
3.
Drowning 03:27
Drowning This is the scream of a man who has no voice Bolted shut and his tongue cut out dry This is the path of a man who has no choice Covered in blisters and blistered by water And drowning himself in the hope that he’ll die This is the end of a day with no time Passing by like a blinded girl in the sea This is the song of a mute man as he chimes Loving the torture and torturing everything Lost in the sun till there’s nothing left for me So here’s my goodbye to the lost and desperate Long out of place and I’m not coming back This is the vision that flashes not separate Just like a film of the film of the dust As it lifts off of me as the picture fades to black This is the pain and the failure inside When I run to the edge of the world This is the universe all in my eyes I can see I can see I can see I can see And it looks like a film of the film of the dust As it lifts off of me as the picture fades to black And it looks like a night that I want to forget But it’s always the same when the daylight fades to black Here’s my goodbye to the lost and desolate Fall out of grace and I cannot go back This is the voice as it echoes me desperate Like when you said “You are everything I lack.”
4.
Something Dire I thought I'd gotten over this Day after day after a hundred years What good is it now I tremble to contain Everything promised and never received Everyone said that they wouldn't leave Everything promised and never received Stop me if I let my tongue spew fire Kill me if you cannot reach me Stop me if I'm doing something dire Kill me if you cannot teach me I thought I would endure it all I cannot see what i had wanted then What have I done The stains of yesterday All of the time I was lying down Backwards and forwards and bleeding sound All of the time I was lying down Stop me if I let my tongue spew fire Kill me if you cannot reach me Stop me if I'm doing something dire Kill me if you cannot teach me But I'll stay again I can wait some more I can stay right here for what's in store I can hold my own Glowing like a rose I will stay right here until you go
5.
Quartering 03:49
Quartering: As we lie on the voodoo of kings and their lies Like an acid outburst, worms empty your eyes And it’s hot as an ulcer and it’s dry as my tongue And I’m making a promise to let her die young Can I stop this evolving, this my Hamlet Machine? Falling coasting bleeding moaning writhing running dying Into my hands, into my dream And then the withered man draws out his gun See his revolver twitch—we weren’t anyone Here is the house where I live, he said Why are you coming for me? A mountain a bridge you’re splitting your life The hail of the traveler, me This is the hill with no summit, boy Only the death of a fool Strike your end and you'll be gone The laughter was everything cruel As we lie on the bodies of those whom we seek We wonder the purpose of climbing up high The peak always growing the wind always blowing We see with a stone, we cry Paranoia how I miss you The pain of serenity? But when you're lost, exhausted Knock the door, you’ll know it’s me
6.
Mother’s Blood Swaddled in mother’s blood Your armor for today It’s a boy new and icy cold Weight of Earth Hungry birth Conflagration’s prey L’homme armé doibt on doubter On a fait partout crier Que chascun se viegne armer D’un haubregon de fer You my son my weakness here Cast you off You my strength my source of fear Cast you off You my heart and you my life Cast you off On a journey take my strife Cast you off from me Swaddled in father’s tears Some things never change It’s a quest in my cowardice In my place Burns my face Road ahead is strange I force this upon you Forced on me as well No more forgiving now Built in my own cell
7.
Feet of Clay 03:26
Feet of Clay It seems tonight I’ve run out of words The pestering beings that I cannot find Though countless sensations of sadness and fear Rip their way from my loins up the spine It seems tonight I’ve run out of space Malevolent faces and walls bearing down And there’s no one so constant and real as to hear My babble of havoc abound So hello strange and silent boy With skin a lead and gold alloy My feet of clay you built me high My jaw is shut and you ask why With no hello and no goodbye I turn away from joy It seems tonight they get what they want A servant a slave of labor subject To study the mania not in my head But they somehow to me still connect It seems tonight I have grappled my way On a circus wheel spinning to carry me home The illusion of progress is visually false And I’m washed to the rocks by the foam So twitch and scream for once don’t open up So gnash and lash and cry you’ve had enough
8.
The Phoenix's Last Stand Taken with a grain of salt A grain of sand I can now recall The Phoenix's last stand Behind the glass A shelter for the tears Another option Unexplored appears Waiting for the rain To carry him once more Quietly he closes Yet another door Another thousand years Is really not that long This is my last stand And you did nothing wrong Wings are broken Move them anyway Pigmentation gone But that's okay He will try to fly Will not give in But she has wrapped Her arms beneath his skin This at his request They are so much the same His smile is the final seal He will not try again Slowly he retreats The infantry disbands And hangs their heads to see The Phoenix's last stand
9.
Famine Of The Soul: I see good spirits and I see bad I see friends that I never had Too many broken to say the words Here is the time and the sound I heard In the times when I'm asleep I hear voices call a name Is it me or is it you Who is making me insane? Too close to slip away I feel no pain anymore In the dream, there were seven slain But I know you wanted more It was an alibi of yours After the blood had run its course Tears of hysteria fall free What did the angel do to me? All alone in sweat-filled night Held together by a string And it's pulling far too tight With the humble past to bring This is the way the stream runs dry This is the famine of the soul They are the ones who now have reached All the comfort of their goals When the shackles come unbound There are fetters that hold strong That will bind you to the land And will blur your right and wrong Nullification of your thoughts Empty sockets left to rot Warlike visions, warlock speech There is a lesson only you can teach And when hope is dead and gone Don't come running back to me You can't find me with your trust Only then will I hear your plea Now you've seen the things that I have seen And felt the sterile serenity A sucking void that you will enter Ubiquitous now 'cause you didn't listen No, you didn't listen
10.
An Aftermath 03:30
An Aftermath It was all so real The time the day so pure A final word a smile Intentions still unsure But I can make one promise Sent away from you Trading bliss for knowledge Of what I pursue You have never made me feel so sure of what I want To not appear and not explain and act like I forgot Giving in the time to answer, just leave on the light I have hope that you will sleep as well as me tonight It was all so rapid A word into the next Talking about creation And leaving me perplexed But I will heed the wisdom Of letting go my thoughts Making now alive What formerly was not And though it’s temporary I find I want to smile So here is to the time today And maybe sometime later In a while

about

When I was a teenager, I lived in the Netherlands as an exchange student. I decided I would write a song every two days to learn my craft and document the year, and so over the course of twelve months, I dashed off 180 pieces of music. Most were terrible. Many are now lost. Written under an obsession with the Legendary Pink Dots, the Cure, and Dead Can Dance, these songs represent a gothicism that was utterly juvenile, guileless, and absurd—which is almost certainly the best sort of gothicism. In 2016, while recording Seeming’s SOL album, I took a two-week break to revisit some of these old songs, recording them quickly but faithfully in the style that I’d imagined. It is my hope that for all the teen angst on this album, there’s also trace of teen hubris and vivacity.

credits

released July 24, 2018

All songs written by Alex Reed 1995-96.
Recorded twenty years later.
Not one note was changed.
Cover photo by Louis Stein.

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Alex Reed New York, New York

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